John Birmingham

If only our favourite Attorney-General, George "Orwellian" Brandis, had been able to get a little media training from General Mike Hayden, the former director of the NSA and the CIA (which is little like having "boss of the Avengers and the Justice League" on your CV).

The G-Man found himself in all sorts of bother this week, when he came unstuck trying to explain why Tony Abbott totally needs to know you wasted five hours in a shame spiral of nude celebrity cellulite websites when you should have been googling up gift ideas for your grandmother.

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General Hayden's enthusiastic endorsement of metadata as the digital equivalent of strapping nitrous tanks to your state-sanctioned murder program was short, simple and direct. It popped, in marketing speak. Everything George's rambling interview with David Speers on Sky News didn't.

Maybe he was still hurting from the hits he took after speaking up for the rights of Nazi sympathisers and YouTube trolls. "People do have a right to be bigots, you know."

The Speers interview went viral and a perfectly reasonable plan to snoop on the private lives of 20 million or so law-abiding citizens suddenly seemed ... well, not very reasonable at all. Perhaps quoting another NSA old boy, General Counsel Stewart Baker, might have helped to sell the government's massive expansion of everyday spying on everyone and everything. Explaining the mysterious properties of metadata, Baker didn't resort to misleading or tortured analogies with stealing and reading old-fashioned paper envelopes. He simply said: "Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody's life."

That's how simple it is, Senator. You could have saved yourself all that trouble and embarrassment. Next time Speersy asks one of those awkward, embarrassing questions about your awkward, embarrassing habit of rifling through our online unmentionables, just tell him: "We need to know everything. So we can kill you."

Funny to think the whole fiasco was supposed to distract from the bigots-have-rights-too botch-up. Just as Canberra was promising to record everything you ever do or say online, it was also stamping out your precious, precious freedom to say the dumbest, most hurtful thing you can think of. Here was the hapless inefficiency of Big Guv on display; spending hundreds of millions of dollars to put our milquetoast spies on steroids at the very same moment it crushed the hopes and dreams of bigots and terrorists everywhere that they'd be able to say something worth spying on.

★★★

Of course bigots and terrorists are always worthy spying on, but so is Andrew Bolt. My dear friend and colleague found himself in unlikely company this week when changes to the Racial Discrimination Act which should have protected him, and bigots and terrorists – hell, all of us – from saying whatever they or we damned well like were unceremoniously squashed in cabinet. Apparently 5000 submissions flooded in and only one-tenth of one per cent of bugger all of them agreed that people do have a right to be bigots, you know.

Still, as I tried to explain to Andrew over lunch at our club (a thrice-baked souffle of endangered native bird eggs; with chilled monkey brains for dessert), it wasn't all bad. If the so-called "Bolt amendment" had gone through, those dreadful beardy nutters would have had exactly the same right to spout their dangerous lunacy as decent fellows like us. Surely he wouldn't wish to be thought a hypocrite for demanding a right to spout dangerous lunacy that he denied others. He did not reply directly, instead frowning and aggressively shovelling more than his fair share of chilled monkey brains out of Bonzo's head. It was not at all seemly or becoming.

There was an upside to all this inept social engineering, however. Deltra Goodrem can now live free of the debilitating fear that Marlon Wayans will trash her dance moves on the internet. And if he does, ASIO will be all over the metadata.

The clock ticked down Wayans' 15 minutes of fame long before it started on Delta's, but he got a few minutes of overtime after sharing a photo of her dancing at a Beyonce/Jay Z gig in LA.

"Man I got the most UNRHYTHMIC WHITE WOMAN dancing next to me at the jay and bay concert," Wayans announced on Instagram, with a picture of the star of no movies anyone recalls in the past 10 years giving Goodrem a scorching side-eye. "This bitch dancing to AC/DC."

The sexism, the racism, the criminal lack of respect for the hardest-rocking aged pensioners in the world, that was never going to fly, Mr Wayans. Not now that the federal government has broken another election promise and confirmed people don't have a right to be bigots.

Even as an ASIS wetworks team was despatched to LA, Wayans struck back, tweeting that "all these sensitive ass people" calling him a racist woman hater could "suck it long, hard and till y'all mouths hurt". One day people would understand, he protested. "I simply don't give a f---. And I refuse to succumb to this new world order."

It is understood neither Beyonce nor Mr Z were aware of the controversy, nor of the existence of Mr Wayans.

★★★

Finally, was there ever a moment you felt prouder to be Australian? How my heart swelled to see that tangle-footed train passenger in Perth fall into the gap between the platform and his ride, only to be saved by dozens of commuters who leaned in and pushed all those immense tonnages of steel off him. They were such great photos. Blokes in high vis gear. Suits. Shorts. Office casual. Men and women. Mullets, shaved heads, tattoos, boots and sensible shoes. Possibly even a pair of leg warmers. The great Australian tribe all putting their shoulders in.

I can only hope that as they heaved and strained to shift the massive weight they chanted "Straya-Straya-Straya" and roared "You bloody beauty!" as the steel behemoth rocked and the trapped punter was set free.

84 comments so far

If I write something you don't like you're gunna keep it and have me killed for being a divisive subversive . If I write something you do like you're gunna keep it and have me killed for being a bum-mooching sycophant. If I write something everybody but you likes you're gunna keep it and have me killed as a plenipotentiary martyr. If I keep this up I'm gunna have to kill myself and save the State {and yourself} the effort. So.Have a nice day.

Commenter

mutt

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 6:07AM

The media are trying to hijack politics in this country. Murdoch campaigned against Gillard and Rudd (who were awful Prime Ministers regardless), and Fairfax has taken it to a new level against Abbott (also a lousy PM). I wonder when the media war will end and a Government on either side will get a fair opportunity to govern? Perhaps not until Abbott has left the scene. It might be the circuit breaker needed to end the existing quagmire in Australian politics.

Commenter

Flanders

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 8:41AM

well maybe they shouldn't give the media so many lousy stories to write about. I have never in my whole entire life seen a cabinet of ministers that is as big a train wreck as this one, each one is more ridiculously bumbling than the next one. It's quite hilarious if it wasn't scary because they're running my country....the adults are in charge? more like Monti python are in charge...each time I see one of them on TV the benny hill theme song plays in my head...

Commenter

perplexed

Location

nsw

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 9:04AM

WM - 'we are still entitled to humiliate, offend and insult people on grounds that don't include race. Where would you draw the line on unfettered free speech'

I probably wouldn't draw the line, in terms of how the law is currently applied under section 18C. Can you give me an example where the line should be drawn?

Commenter

Flanders

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 9:14AM

Flanders! A fair opportunity to govern! WHAT?If only the media still manifested the skill, ethics and purpose to apply such power. I thought our media was a division of Abbott and Co. Spinning the spin spun to them and then spinning it some more.

The sooner we have ANY government that gets on with the job of GOVERNING this country effectively the better off Australia and Australians will be. The only thing Abbott seems good at is putting public money into corporate and wealthy pockets whilst telling the rest of us (the greater majority) that we aren't entitled. Ugh. Horrendous.

Commenter

SiobhanB

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 9:25AM

@ mutt - lol@JB. I also truly enjoyed that picture. It was pure altruism - in its finest demonstration. It showed that many Australians are "lifters and leaners" (in balanced and measurable proportions). All of those LNP mantras and slogans insult the true fibre of the Australian people. (Just who are the PR / Marketing people leading Abbott & Co.? They need to be sacked).

Commenter

Jump

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 10:04AM

Flanders, Fairfax didn't take things to a new level - Abbott did

Commenter

Drovers cat

Location

An alleyway

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 10:20AM

The jour no fails to understand that EVERY web site collects his metadata. Facebook know what you like where you go and your little idiosyncrasies. Goggle is aiming to OWN all the knowledge held in libraries. Already they are scanning Harvards library and hence will be able to control, price you name it the worlds knowledge. Do not be fearful of governments looking at metadata. Rather those that have a clear agenda to use it and importantly are NOT accountable.

Commenter

iUser

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 10:22AM

@iuser I would trust Google more than any government. At least I know that Google's agenda is about money and while that is still a worry it is a clear motive. Government's motives are far more murky and untrustworthy, unless of course you believe the Orwellian sentiment of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". Governments get to choose what the 'nothings' are.

Commenter

Sir Steven

Date and time

August 09, 2014, 12:02PM

Sir Steven at 1202, you're in the minority there.

Historically, Australians have been fairly trusting of government.

That might not be ideal, but whether we want to go full-blown US libertarian paranoia has yet to be convincingly demonstrated.

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